Interviews - Young Guns II
Video Interview Clips William Petersen interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuksKiWziF8 Jon Bon Jovi & Emilio Estevez - Making of Young Guns II interview Kiefer Sutherland & Emilio Estevez - E! "Shameless Plug" Various - Film Monthly - November 1990 Emilio Estevez as Billy the Kid: "I think Billy was a great leader, someone who wasn't going to bow down to the enemy. He was always ready to go shooting, so to a certain extent, he was fearless. Billy was a dangerous individual. He lived by the gun and soon he was running out of places to hide and people to trust." Lou Diamond Phillips as Chavez: "It would not be a good thing to portray Billy the Kid as an absolute hero. He is most defiantly an anti-hero, psychotic, crazy and the guys who rode with him had a little bit of that. People died early and violently in those times. You had to have an edge to survive, and hopefully we've captured that spirit." Christian Slater as Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh: "He's almost as crazy as Billy the kid. He and Billy are always competing for control of the gang and are always at each others throats. I had to learn how to draw guns and work with a knife. I had to get used to riding a horse. I even had a runaway horse. That was exciting and frightening." Kiefer Sutherland as Josiah "Doc" Scurlock: "In Young Guns II we get to do more of what we started in the first film; we're just completing the story that we started in Young Guns. Over the course of these two films, we have all developed the same kind of loyalty the regulators had." --- Young Guns II, points out executive producer/screenwriter John Fusco, "Is really about the legend growing under Billy's feet so fast and furious that he himself can't keep up with it." Estevez has long been fascinated by the legend of Billy the Kid. "John Fusco and I even drove down to Lincoln, the town where Billy wreaked so much havoc," says Emilio. "I was fascinated how he lived and how he dealt with the Old West. I think we are fascinated by rebellious characters. We're still fascinated by James Dean, and you could say Billy was like a movie star, to some extent. He was a media celebrity. A measure of Billy's celebrity is that this is the 48th film to be made about him, and I think we've gotten close to who Billy really was as possible. He constantly defied authority - that's the way he lived his life. And of course that is how and why he died." --- William Petersen, portraying the man who eventually killed Billy the Kid, believes that Pat Garrett didn't actually intend to kill Billy. "I think he ultimately hoped to chase Billy to Mexico. I'm not sure he wanted to kill him. He just wanted to get him out of town. Quite often Garrett, not being in a hurry to catch them in the first place because he likes the guys, takes the easy way round." --- One special location used for the movie was the Old Tucson Studios in Arizona, a film town built for the 1940 Western, Arizona. The remainder of the Arizona shoot took place on sprawling ranches and other picturesque locations. Other sequences were filmed in New Mexico. At Santa Fe where the Old Pecos Trail and the trail came to an end, the hotel 'La Fonda' - was supposedly where Billy the Kid washed dishes, and just down the road from Cook's Movie Ranch was the restaurant 'Legal Tender' where Pat Garrett brought his just captured prisoner Billy the Kid for lunch. A corner of Cook's Ranch was used as the setting for Garrett's capture of Billy. Says Estevez, "I think to play a character you have to love him even of he is a terrible villain. And although all the research and just through being blessed with playing the part, I've grown to love him." "I would love to believe that Billy lived on, that Pat Garrett knew the meaning of the word 'pals' as well as Billy did, and didn't kill him that night at Pete Maxwell's. That's what I'd like to believe." Various - Just Seventeen - October 1990 Balthazar Getty on Young Guns II: "We all became really close on this film. I'd known Kiefer the longest as I met him through my aunt while he was filming 'Lost Boys'. I even got to stay at his house the whole summer. My character in this film is the total opposite of me. I'm not shy like him - I'm sort of rowdy. Kiefer Sutherland on Young Guns II: "These two films have been a lot of fun for me - in fact I loved the environment so much that I bought a ranch in Montana and I also bought the horse I rode on in this film!" Emilio Estevez On Young Guns II: "I think to play a character you have to love him, even if he is a terrible villain. And through all the research, I've grown to love him and become fascinated by his whole persona and who he really was." Alan Ruck On Young Guns II: "Some of us came to Tuscon (where Young Guns II was filmed) two weeks early - and let me tell you, the cowboys we met were the real thing! We spent time on the horses and in the bush and on the desert." Lou Diamond Phillips on Young Guns II: "There's something about doing a Western - about getting out and doing something so removed from what we usually do - it's like a summer camp, in some ways. The one thing that really convinced me to make this film was the knowledge that Emilio and Kiefer and I all wanted to work together again." Christian Slater on Young Guns II: "Arkansas Dave is almost as crazy as Billy the Kid. He and Billy are always competing for control of the gang and are always at each others throats. There's quite a lot of humour in the film but there are some scary moments too." Various – Screens - April 1991 Kiefer Sutherland alias Josiah Doc Scurlock. The most successful Young Gun, Kiefer is widely seen as the most talented actor of his generation. Kiefer fell in love with wild-western style living when he filmed the first Young Guns. He says: "After the first film, I bought a ranch in Montana and I bought the horse I rode in the film, as well as a few others." Lou Diamond Phillips alias Chavez Y Chavez. "There is something about doing a western - about getting out and doing something so removed from reality - that's like summer camp, in some ways," Says Lou describing one of his reasons for returning to the role of Chavez in Young Guns II. Christian Slater alias Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh. As wild man Arkansas Dave, Christian almost steals the show from under leading man Emilio Estevez. "Dave is almost as crazy as Billy the Kid. He and Billy are always competing for control of the gang and are always at each other's throats. He's also rather funny," says Christian. Various - Press Kit John Fusco & Fimmakers The charismatic, headstrong, unpredictable Billy the Kid has been a twenty-year interest for John Fusco, who notes: "I have had a fascination with the Wild west since I was ten years old. The life, the mining towns, the outlaws - I don't know why it was such a magnet, but it really drew me in, and one of the first characters I became really fascinated with was Billy the Kid." "When I saw that first tintype photo of Billy," he says, "the only confirmed photo of him that exists, I was surprised. I had seen him played in films by Johnny Mack Brown, Audie Murphy, Paul Newman and Kris Kristofferson, and they played him as a black-clad ladies man who whistled sad ballads, was left handed and rode off into the sunset. You only have to look at the picture to see he was about 5'6", buck toothed and slope shouldered, an impish little fellow with mischief twinkling in his eyes. And of course there are eyewitness descriptions and stories about him, and I talked to scores of people who are only one generation or two removed from him." "So the Billy the kid we are showing is the real Billy the Kid, the historical Billy - historical at least in deeds, and about as close as you can get in age and size and have him played by a major actor. Emilio doesn't have buck teeth and sloping shoulders, but he has a similar build and has those dancing blue eyes, and he brings Billy's wild sense of humour to the part." "Young Guns II definitely has a bigger look to it that part one." Says Fusco. "I thought the first film captured nicely the claustrophobia of Lincoln, New Mexico, and the corruption. This one takes the lid off and opens up." Producer Paul Schiff points out that because Young guns II is more epic and more visceral and involves locations very explicitly, it was much more difficult film to make. "We were shooting in two different states, going to great lengths to get the correct locations. We had location mangers in each state, and naturally we had to follow them to scores of sites for months, trying to find that perfect blend of the authentic, the unique, the accessible and the permissible. Although we didn't tie ourselves down exclusively to these areas, we were fortunate enough to come up with locations that were seemingly made for movies" One location of which that was literally true was Old Tuscon Studios in Arizona, a film town built for the 1940 Western 'Arizona'. which starred Jean Arther and William Holden. Says Schiff: "It was really the most versatile and flexible western movie set that we've seen in the country. In its fifty-year-life, dozens of TV shows and films have been shot there. It's unique because different scenes can be shot within a few yards of each other." The remainder of the Arizona shoot took place on sprawling ranches and other natural locations, some quite difficult to access. In one case, authenticity took precedence over facility and comfort as John Fusco explains: "We have one scene in which the boys approach an Apache burial site. It is a rather magical and disturbing scene, as one of the Regulators chooses to desecrate the site. The actual site where this incident took place was very close to the stronghold that the Cochise Indians had back in the rocks in Texas Canyon, which was just incredible. We all had to hike back there and drag cameras and equipment. There would have been easier alternative locations, but we wanted to be there. Because we were re-enacting the desecration of a burial site in an actual Indian stronghold, we had an Indian medicine man out to the site and perform a ceremony before filming." The scenes shot in New Mexico were also replete with the lore of the Old West. Santa Fe, now a cosmopolitan haven known for its art galleries, music and cuisine, is where the Old Pecos Trail and the Santa Fe Trail came to an end. Surrounded by historical buildings, the hotel La Fonda -'The Inn At The End Of The Trail' - was one of the most significant for the cast and crew of Young Guns II because, supposedly, Billy the Kid actually washed dishes there. Just down the road from Cook's Movie Ranch, a large, secluded place soyth of Santa Fe, was the restaurant Legal Tender, where Pat Garrett brought his just-captured prisoner Billy Bonney for lunch. A corner of Cook's Ranch provided the setting for the shootout where Garrett captures Billy the Kid. The extreme desert temperatures became somewhat troublesome - the paint and plaster the art department applied to their specially built 'Stone Cabin' in the frigid mornings would begin to peel off as the noonday sun warmed up the place. However, enough snow stuck to provide ammunition for a few choice snowball fights among the Regulators when the cameras were rolling. When they weren't lobbing snowballs, the actors practiced gun-twirling, knife-throwing, roping and deftly falling off horses. All became fairly accomplished riders, under the guidance of veteran stun coordinator Mickey Gilbery and head wrangler Jack Lilley. The Regulators who survived Young guns, brushed up on their equestrian skills, and the actors new to the West learned the finer points of riding through daily practice with Lilley and Gilbert, until 'Apache Hideaway', stirrup drags, and riding and firing backwards became second nature. While the stuntmen and wranglers helped the actors become the legendary figures of the Old West, property master Peter Bankins made sure they had firepower. He and his assistants kept track of about 75 pistols and rifles, introducing an elaborate security ritual to ensure that no guns were loaded until immediately before 'action' was called. John Fusco notes that "The Old West was a violent place, and if you do a story about that period, you are doing a story in which violence was prevalent." It was the job of special effects coordinator Peter M. Chesney and his Image Engineering, Inc., to convey that violence. Among the carefully designed effects were a burning bordello, rounds of ammunition exploding like fireworks, an out-of-control covered wagon on fire and a torched shop. Director Geoff Murphy says: "Emilio is terrific. He seems more mature than in part one as an actor, as a person and as the character - more mature and more comfortable with himself and his Billy is more relaxed and cheekier." "This is something that has evolved naturally. Having played the role already he no longer has to search for it. He can now move about inside the character with great assurance. And this is an extremely complex character. In a way, Billy is naive and has the enthusiasm of a boy, but with some of the steel of a man. But by the end of the picture, he has to be mature enough to address his position and separate the myth from the reality with regard to himself." Emilio Estevez Estevez grew to share John Fusco's fascination with Billy the Kid. "I immersed myself in this character six to eight weeks before we started shooting," the actor recalls. "John Fusco and I even drove down to Lincoln, the town where Billy wreaked so much havoc. I really became fascinated with who this guy was, and how he lived, and how he dealt with the Old West - his whole life. He has an incredible zest for life, and I really look at him as an original American rebel. I think we're fascinated by rebellious characters. We're still fascinated by James Dean, and you could say Billy was like a movie star, to some extent. He was a media celebrity - we were fascinated by media celebrity then as we are now. A measure of Billy's celebrity is that this is the 48th film to be made about him, and I think we've gotten as close to who Billy really was as possible." "I think to play a character you have to love him." says Estevez. "Even if he is a terrible villain. And through all the research and just through being blessed with playing the part, I've grown to love him. I've become fascinated by his persona and who he was." Estevez notes that one of the books he read described Billy as 'The villainous obstacle to Manifest Destiny.' adding that he thinks it's an accurate assessment: "I've seen him played by Kris Kristofferson, Paul Newman, Roy Rogers and Audie Murphy, among others. Some of those were terrific performances, but not accurate ones. He was often portrayed as a romantic hero. But he wasn't." Estevez sees the Kid's boundless ego as part of his charm and part of his downfall: "Billy really knew no restraints. I think he was very taken with himself, with his own personality - which is one of the reasons he never left New Mexico. He said that if he went down to Old Mexico, he'd just be another gringo and no one would recognize him." "I think Billy was a great leader, someone who wasn't going bow down to the enemy. He was always ready to go shooting, so to a certain extent, he was fearless. The West was a dangerous place, and the time was one of swift judgement - the fastest man lived. Billy was a dangerous individual. He lived by the gun, and he was running out of places to hide and people to trust." "What was intriguing about Billy is that he wasn't about to be caged in by barbed wire or by the cattle kings who were controlling the Territory, or by the Governor, or by anybody else trying to tell him what to do. He would just turn around and go the opposite way. He constantly defied authority - that's the way he lived his life. And, of course, that is how and why he died." "And another appealing trait of his was that he was extremely loyal. He was this incredible free spirit who loved the idea of himself, but also loved his pals. He held his friends very dear." It is the mercurial element of trust that comes between Billy the Kid and his one-time friend Pat Garrett and their precarious bond also fascinates Estevez. "I would love to believe that Billy lived on," He says, "that Pat Garrett knew the meaning of the word 'pals' as well as Billy did, and didn't kill him that night at Pete Maxwell's. That's what I'd like to believe." Above all, Estevez hopes to present an accurate portrayal of the impish, wicked, audacious 'boy bandit'. When asked to name the actor who most honestly portrayed the Kid, he replies with that shrill, high pitched laugh and typical Billy bravado: "You're looking at him." Kiefer Sutherland Kiefer Sutherland's character, Josiah "Doc" Scurlock, is one of Fusco's favourite "historical characters". Educated and genteel on the surface, Scurlock is deviled by a violent past, a volatile nature and a restless spirit that ultimately lead him back to Billy the Kid. "Doc was really an aspiring poet and teacher," Fusco explains. "He actually went off after the Lincoln County War and studied medicine and became a doctor, a postmaster - he held fifteen different positions. But he followed Billy. Kiefer is good for this role because he is sensitive, yet there is always something dangerous lurking there and I think that is what Doc had. Kiefer is a real dichotomy - he can be very poetic and romantic and the gentlest soul you could ever hope to meet. But he has an edge about him. He acts as if he has gone through a lot in his relatively short life, so he is really perfect for the role." Sutherland says: "These two films have been a lot of fun for all of us, especially for the three of us who survived Young Guns. In Young Guns II we get to do more of what we started in the first film; we're just completing the story that was started in Young Guns. Over the course of these two films, we have all developed the same kind of loyalty the Regulators had. Like them, we have a common goal. Ours is that we want to make the best film possible - we want people to enjoy what we've done in this one." The physical experience of shooting a western, riding horses in the sunshine of Tuscon and Santa Fe also appealed to Sutherland. In fact, he says, he became so fond of the environment that he bought a ranch: "after the first film, I bought a ranch in Montana. And I bought the horse I rode in this film, as well as a few others. One of the wranglers agreed to bring the horses up to Montana for me." Sutherland has a great deal of respect for the wranglers, who not only taught him to ride, but helped him understand the attitude of the West: "We learned a lot from them. They taught me how to ride, how to waste away an evening and I think they are probably the hardest-working people on the film, other than maybe the director. They have real honor, a real straightforward code of ethics." Sutherland notes that Billy the Kid and his Regulators had a certain honor and code of ethics as well, "The kind of loyalty that comes from an ideal and that ideal comes from being able to live in a country and be free. To fight together for that freedom, even if it is, finally, the wrong fight and the ideals are at the end misguided." Lou Diamond Philips Lou Diamond Phillps, who reprises his role as one of Billy's pals, the Mexican-Indian Chavez y Chavez, notes that Chavez was equally loyal to Billy. "He was very close to Billy the Kid. On his tombstone, his epitaph reads: 'Billy the Kid was my pal'." "We are definitely bringing realism to the screen in this one, as we did in the first. And those young Regulators were not all bad, and certainly not all good. It would not be a good thing to portray Billy the Kid as an absolute hero. He is most definitely an anti-hero - psychotic and crazy - and the guys who rode with him had a little bit of that. People died early and violently in those times. You had to have an edge to survive and hopefully we've captured that spirit." Although Phillps feels that Chavez hasn't changed fundamentally, he say that the character in Young Guns II is more assured and less angry. "I don't think he's changed a whole lot. His hair's certainly longer, but deep down, the bits and pieces I put into the character initially still apply - except now that there's more." "There's a lot of anger in Chavez in Young Guns because he was an outsider among outsiders. And he didn't feel like he belonged. I spent many hours talking to John Fusco about where Chavez had gone in that year he spent away from Billy. It helped him to become more secure. He's become a man of peace. He has traveled around to different Indian nations and garnered a little bit from every one of these tribes in a search to find himself and his family." "When we meet Chavez in Young Guns II he is a man who knows who he is and where his destiny lies and is much less confused than in the first one and therefore much less angry." "The only way I could rationalize doing a sequel was, hopefully, to do something better and specifically to think that my character would grow. Chavez has developed beautifully - it was quite exciting to read the script and say 'You know what? I think we can do something that can surpass what we did in the first one.' There was a rawness, a heart and originality to the first one, but I think Young Guns II is going to hit people a little more emotionally." "Also, we're all allowed a few laughs in this one. I don't think I smiled at all in the first one. There's a lot of humor in Part Two. Each character has his own quirks and some of them are quite funny." But primarily it was Fusco's scrupulous attention to the Native American experience in the Old West, Phillips says that drew him to Young Guns II. "John Fusco is just an incredible writer and in Young Guns II I get a chance to do some of the things that I wanted to do in the first one, such as getting a little more of the Native American authenticity into the film. I felt that when I am portraying certain ethnic backgrounds, certain slices of Americana, I have an obligation to try and get the truth up there." John Fusco talks about Lou's character: "I brought Buddy Redbow and asked him to really work with Lou and make different things accessible. He set Lou up with a Navajo language instructor. When I hear him speak Navajo, which he speaks fluently, and become his character, it's like living a dream - seeing all these historical characters who mean so much to me come to life." William Peterson While Doc Scurlock is John Fusco's favourite character, the writer says that Sheriff Pat Garrett is one of the most interesting figures of the Old West: "I find the conflict between these two one-time pals quite interesting. It is known that Garrett rustled with Billy a few times and the Kid was really hurt and surprised when he learned that Garrett had sold out and was taking the job of hunting him down." William Peterson who plays Garrett, describes the role as: "Really wonderful because you have these two guys who were friends and ended up in the conflicts that are inherent in the situation where you have to go after your friend. Garrett certainly wasn't a law enforcer for most of his life - he was a buffalo hunter. After Billy had been loose for two years, the new Governor decided they had to bring him to justice. They hired Garrett because they needed someone who knew Billy and knew what he'd be doing and where to capture him. And it was a good job at the time - they paid him a lot of money, a lot of more than he could make from rustling cattle." But Peterson doesn't believe Garrett ever actually intended to kill Billy: "I think he ultimately hoped to chase Billy to Mexico. I'm not sure that he wanted to kill him. He just wanted to get him out of town. Quite often Garrett, not being in any hurry to catch them in the first place because he likes the guys, takes the easy way around." Peterson notes that Young Guns II is his first western. It was Emilio Estevez's portrayal of Billy the Kid in Young Guns that drew him to the part Garrett. "I really wanted to do the part," he recalls, "because in the first movie, I thought Emilio captured the Kid better probably than anybody who's ever played it." It was Fusco's writing however that clinched it: "As far as I'm concerned," Peterson says, "all of entertainment is about the writing. And this character's well-written. It's really important to me to care about the character. I think the only time that I've done a bad job as an actor is when I didn't really love the character and I didn't find myself feeling the things that he felt. And that's all about the writing." Ironically it was Garrett's own writings about his pursuit of Billy the Kid that Fusco sought to demystify. He explains: "Through Ash Upson, the newspaperman Garrett hired to write the story of his capture of Billy, Garrett seemed to conspire to create a bigger-than-life adversary, and I am out to dispel some of the myths he helped to create with his purple prose and dime-novel literature. Out of the cardboard legend left us by Garrett and Upson, I wanted to make Billy human, and show the background. I see Billy as someone who went too far, who took his brand of justice too far" William Peterson plays outlaw turned lawman Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid's one-time friend. Christian Slater Christian Slater Plays Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh a new addition to Billy the Kid's gang of Regulators, almost as outrageous as the Kid himself. Slater says he's never played a role as wild as Arkansas Dave. "He's almost as crazy as Billy the Kid," Slater says. "He and Billy are always competing for control of the gang and are always at each other's throats." "He's also rather funny. There's quite a bit of humor in this film, but there are a lot of realistic and scary moments too." Slater relished his opportunity to experience the West through Young Guns II: "I had to learn how to draw guns and work with a knife. I had to get used to riding a horse. I even had a runaway horse. That was exciting and frightening - just you and the horse, your heart beating. All in all though, I think I got the feel of the 'cowboy thing'." Balthazar Getty content Alan Ruck content